


Ancient Methods of Roasting Chickens

by fleete



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 1950s, Cooking, Multi, OT4, Polyamory, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleete/pseuds/fleete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four of them do not often turn up in the same place in the same life, but now that they have, they are determined to make it work.</p><p>Now they just have to get Gwen to remember who they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancient Methods of Roasting Chickens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [concinnity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/concinnity/gifts).



> LOOKIT CONCINNITY I WROTE YOU A THING. (finally) About a million years ago, you asked for fic in which the four of them are all alive and happy together. That is what this is.
> 
>  **content notes** : 1950s racism, brief references to slavery and racial violence, people being stupid about their white privilege, stalking
> 
> Thanks very much to flammablehat for reading this over and letting me flail at you about it. :)

**1953**

One cold evening in January, Morgana looks up from her dinner to the face of Guinevere Pendragon.

“I understand you had a complaint about the food?” Gwen asks, perhaps not for the first time.

“I…” It takes Morgana a moment to remember where she is and what she’s doing here in this roadside pub. Gwen stands before her, gorgeous, with her hair pulled back up under a scarf and her apron stained with grease. 

“Ma’am?”

Oh. Morgana looks down at the beef on her plate, drippping with thick, brown gravy. It looks marvelous. She can’t remember what she wanted to complain about. “Um.”

Gwen waits a beat. Was her skin always that deep golden hue, or is it the light from the table candles? “Well, I certainly apologize. May I bring you something else?” Her face manages to convey that Morgana is a fool if she thinks this food is anything but spectacular, and as if in response, the taste—meaty, robust—becomes apparent on Morgana’s tongue.

“…no,” Morgana says at length. “No, thank you, this is…it’s good.”

Gwen dips her head, and anyone who hadn’t known her through wars and Rennaissances and that incident with George III’s favorite horse would think her demure. “Thank you, ma’am. Would you like some more coffee?”

Morgana must make some indication in the affirmative, because Gwen leaves and returns with a coffee pot, her apron wrapped around the handle. Morgana has to put her hands in her lap and dig her fingernails into her thighs to stop herself from reaching out.

*

She takes the steps two at a time, nearly misses the eighth step but catches herself on the railing, gets the key in the lock with her hands shaking, and then she’s shouting.

“ARTHUR! MERLIN!” Morgana’s packages hit the ground. “ARTHUR!”

She makes a circle around the first floor and gets halfway up the stairs when Arthur meets her, hair wet and holding up his trousers. “What?! What is it? God, you look awful—”

“I found her,” she says, and throws her arms around his neck. “I found her.”

Arthur’s arms go so tight around her she can hardly breathe. “ _Really?_ ”

“She’s working in a pub in Bristol, I only stopped for some dinner, I should have missed her completely, but I complained about the food. Fucking Bristol. I’ve been going five times a year, and all this time she’s been—” Morgana abruptly runs out of air and puts her face into Arthur’s shoulder.

They sit on the stairs and clutch at each other for most of an hour. All Morgana can think is _don’t get your hopes up_ , but she doesn’t say it aloud. Arthur knows. They both know. But it’s still terrifying, now that she’s sat still long enough to contemplate the possibilities. What if it doesn’t work out?

“I suppose we’re moving to Bristol, then,” Arthur says eventually.

“Mmm. I’ve bought a house in Clifton.”

“Good. Wait. What?”

“I went directly from the pub and found an estate agent. Signed the papers and everything. It’s only got two bedrooms, so you’ll have to overcome your fear of buggery and stay with Merlin. I’m not sharing a room with you.”

Arthur colors predictably at that—he was raised by devout Anglicans, this time around—but doesn’t take the bait. “You paid them with magicked-up money, didn’t you?”

“It’s Gwen,” Morgana reminds him, because that’s all that needs to be said. Arthur’s frown collapses into a sigh.

“You and Merlin are going to put real money in their accounts, eventually.”

“Of course,” she lies. “Oh! I forgot Merlin.”

She clatters down the stairs in her heels and is almost to the telephone before she remembers she can just summon him with magic. It’s humiliating, sometimes, to be a high priestess who has to wash her pants in the sink because she can’t recall a cleaning spell, particularly when Merlin had shown up on their doorstep eight months ago with all his great powers remembered and intact.

The door bangs open five minutes later to reveal Merlin, out-of-breath and tie askew from having run four blocks.

“I felt you, what—” 

“It’s Gwen,” Arthur says from the steps. “Morgana found her.”

Merlin’s mouth goes into a tight, overcome line, and he hugs her. 

It’s the first Merlin’s done it in this life, and Morgana's hands don’t know where to go on his bony back, and he snags his watch on her skirt, but Arthur’s beaming at the two of them like they’ve just signed an national treaty. Maybe they have.

All of that is secondary, though, to the anxious little hope growing in Morgana’s chest.

Gwen.

No, it’s too late. She’s got her hopes up.

*

Reincarnation, as it happens, is not a reliable mechanism. It doesn’t work the same way every time. Sometimes they remember their past lives, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they grow up with each other, or find each other, and sometimes they don’t.

Merlin is the most likely of them all to remember. They think it works a bit differently for him, that he might not actually die, per se, but just forget and grow young again. After the first few centuries, Morgana stopped envying him this. There is value in rest.

Morgana’s earliest lives, the first ten or so, involve a great deal of violence and bad luck. She and Merlin are at war in at least four of them. Later on, in lives when Merlin and she meet each other, and remember, they tend not to mention it, but Morgana has always believed that he was punishing her. Whenever she voices this idea, Merlin looks away, jaw set, and they change the subject.

In later lives, it is Gwen who has the most trouble. Her dark complexion takes on new meaning as Britain becomes a great, crawling empire, and England comes up with new and terrible names for a woman who was once their Queen. Sometimes she leaves Britain to live elsewhere. Sometimes she stays. Occasionally, Merlin or Arthur or Morgana come across her and are able to help. In the late 17th century, Morgana and Gwen live a pleasant life masquerading as a baroness and her servant, living alone out in the country. In the 18th century, Gwen leads a slave rebellion and is hung for it. Gwen always says she is proud of that life, but Arthur can never bear to hear about it.

They have spent their lives in various combinations. Sometimes they marry each other. Sometimes they are related. Sometimes they are alone, looking around every corner for familiar faces.

It was something of a miracle, when Morgana looked across the street on V-Day and a smiling, blond lieutenant quite suddenly became _Arthur_ —Arthur staring back at her with recognition in his eyes. They moved to Birmingham, where no one knew them, and set up house as brother and sister. It wasn’t even a lie. 

Morgana was overwhelmingly grateful to have found him. The times when she and Arthur could be siblings have been very few and even more far between. But then Merlin had arrived, nervous and unkempt on their front steps, and he hadn’t even tried to kill her. It was really all too good to be true, and now that they’ve found Gwen, Morgana is prepared for a catch.

*

Gwen does not remember them.

The first night after they’ve moved into the new house in Bristol, they go to the pub where she works—MURDY’S TAVERN, declares the weathered sign—and contrive a reason to ask for the cook. Gwen’s gaze skitters over the three of them with professional deference and nothing more.

“Thank you,” she says with a tired smile when Arthur compliments the pork dish. “That’s very kind of you to say. Could I bring you some more?”

After she leaves, they continue eating in silence. Merlin reaches over to squeeze Arthur’s shoulder.

“She might still remember. But we can’t push her.”

“No,” Arthur says quickly. “No, of course not.”

Forcing memories never works. It can cause hallucinations (Arthur, in the 700s and early 900s, before Merlin worked it out) and fatal brain aneurysms (Morgana, 1592). 

But they knew this might be the case. It’s why they moved to Bristol: because it’s a long game. At the very least, they can get to know Gwen and become friends.

Merlin finds work easily in Bristol, as he’s a trained chemist. Arthur, on the other hand, is unable to get a transfer from his government job in Birmingham, and he refuses to let Merlin and Morgana dupe his superiors using magic. So Morgana acquires a job at the local library to help make ends meet in the lawful way that Arthur wants them to. She doesn’t tell him she got the job using a false reference from the British Museum. 

*

“It’s going to have to be you,” Arthur says when he gets home from the pub on his regular Thursday evening outing. Besides looking for work and waging war with 70 year old house, Arthur spends most of his time going to Gwen’s pub to eat chips and chat her up. “Old Mrs. Murdy just thinks I’m trying to seduce Gwen. She’s warned me to keep out or she’ll take a frying pan to my head."

Morgana smiles. “I like that woman.”

“I don’t. She thinks there’s no reason a white man would want to court Gwen except to get in her knickers.”

Morgana lifts her eyebrows. “She’s trying to protect Gwen. We should send her a fruit basket.”

“Gwen doesn’t need her protection! She’s an adult!” And Arthur flops onto the sofa like a sulky teenager.

Morgana refrains from pointing out that Arthur would feel differently if it were any other man. “Did you see her?” she asks.

His face transforms instantly. “She smiled at me. Right before Murdy kicked me out.” His smile inches up his cheeks, boyish and hopeful, and Morgana can’t help but beam back at him, like a couple of children with a shared crush.

“We’ll think of something,” she says to him, feeling generous. “We need to see her outside of the pub, I think. It will seem less strange that way.”

Mrs. Murdy was starting to object to their constant requests to compliment the cook, after all.

*

She comes home from work the next day to find Arthur peering intently at a cookbook. A fully plucked game hen lies next to him on the counter.

Morgana feels not a little alarmed.

“What is going on?” she asks, but Arthur only sighs in the direction of the cookbook.

“Arthur is cooking,” Merlin whispers loudly. He’s seated in the far corner of the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea and clearly delighted.

“Because…”

“Because he thinks we should cook things for Gwen to get her to remember. Because she’s a cook.”

While Morgana considers the logic of that, Arthur throws a disgusted glare in their direction and redirects his attention to the hen. Morgana hurries to put down her things and drag a chair into the kitchen.

“How long has he been reading the cookbook?” she murmurs to Merlin.

“Half an hour.”

“Oh my god.” Morgana exchanges a grin with Merlin, surprising in how companionable it feels, and she settles in, tucking her feet up under her skirts. The fluffy circle skirts that are so popular this decade bunch up around her hips, and she belatedly remembers to pull them down when Merlin’s eyes drop to her legs.

Arthur, meanwhile, opens a drawer, picks up a knife, and goes to stand over the hen. Merlin bites his lip, and Morgana stuffs a fist into her mouth to avoid giggling.

Arthur lifts his chin with a determined air and starts cutting.

*

It turns out Arthur has taken up not just any kind of cooking, but medieval cooking. _Medieval cooking_. It’s absurd, and Morgana tells him so, but he’s convinced that if only he puts the right dish of food in front of Gwen, she will remember everything.

The following week, he goes to a meeting at the local historical society, where a plump, pretty woman describes ancient methods of roasting chickens, and, by happy coincidence, sells cookbooks.

“But how does _she_ know how to roast chickens like we did back then?” Morgana asks with a pointed jab at the cookbook, which is more of a pamphlet than a book and cost 5£. And Arthur accuses her of thoughtless spending. 

“She learned it from her mum.”

“Who learned it from...”

“ _Her_ mum. It’s passed down through the generations,” says Arthur, slicing carrots with unnecessary force.

“Really.”

“Yes, really. Will you shell those peas?”

“We lived earlier than the medieval period, Arthur. Medieval is after the Normans invaded.”

“No, it isn’t.” He pauses his cutting as a look of panic starts to grow on his face. “It isn’t, is it? That’s what they call us. Medieval.”

“They’re usually talking about the Normans. And Charlemagne and the like.” Probably. Morgana feels a shred of doubt. It is so hard to keep straight her various memories. She remembers wearing crude leather gloves and marveling at glass windows and riding up to the Palace of Beaulieu, but it can be difficult to know _when_.

Arthur’s face echoes her indecision for a moment, before that stubborn, mulish look descends over him. “Well…well, I don’t care. Gwen lived during the Norman period, didn’t she? Remembering any of the past could do it.” He pauses in cutting up the carrots assembled on his cutting board and braces his hands against the counter.“We have to try. We have to get it right this time.”

Morgana starts shelling peas.

They ask Merlin when he comes home, and he says that “medieval” can refer to any time in a thousand year period, which is completely useless, honestly.

*

Arthur arrives home a week later with a bucket of new paint for the front door and the news that Gwen is sick.

“I heard it from Ben at the ironmonger’s,” he says, worriedly.

“And how does Ben at the ironmonger’s know that Gwen is sick?” Morgana asks, and then bites her lip when she realizes how jealous she sounds.

“He lives across the street from her. He said it’s the flu.” Arthur rounds on Merlin, who has just appeared in the kitchen doorway, sleeves rolled up. “You can make something, can’t you? Some kind of medicine?”

“Oh, I can do better than medicine,” Merlin says eagerly, and then Morgana has to talk him out of casting spells directly on Gwen.

They jointly decide on a magic-fortified tonic. Morgana elects herself to be the one to bring it, since either Arthur or Merlin showing up at Gwen’s house was likely to start a scandal. (There was already a small scandal around Arthur, whom the locals regarded as either an eccentric or a pervert for being publicly in love with a black woman. Some regular at the pub had said the word “miscegenation” to Arthur a few days ago and lost a couple of teeth for his trouble. Now both Arthur and the man were officially banned from Murdy’s. It could have been much worse, but Merlin had managed to drag Morgana out before she set anyone on fire.)

Gwen’s home is a white-painted wooden house that she shares with three other girls, all Caribbean immigrants, two maids and another cook. The little porch is well-swept and obviously cared for. Morgana steels herself and knocks on the door.

After a few moments, the door cracks and Gwen’s face appears in the gap. Her eyes are bleary, her nose shiny.

“Miss Smith?” she croaks, using Arthur and Morgana’s fabricated last name. She looks very confused. “What— I mean, hello. Can I help you?”

“I’ve brought your medicine from the chemist’s,” Morgana says. “He’s my…” She flounders a bit to remember what they’d been calling Merlin. “…my cousin? Merlin Smith? He’s the chemist now, and he said he had a delivery for you, but he couldn’t come himself, because he had another delivery, so he asked me, that is, since I was coming to this side of town already.”

Damn. Gwen’s staring at her like she’s daft, possibly because she _sounds_ like she’s daft, blabbering on like an infatuated schoolgirl. Or like Gwen, her mind helpfully supplies, back when they had been girls together in Camelot, and Gwen would bring her flowers, her cheeks all pink from running up the stairs…

Morgana shakes her head. “Here’s your medicine, in any case.” She holds out the little bottle Merlin had prepared.

“I didn’t order any medicine,” Gwen says, but she takes the bottle and examines the label. “I haven’t even been to a doctor.”

“Well, one of your flatmates must have got it for you. Wasn’t that kind?”

Morgana smiles winningly, and after a beat, Gwen’s mouth quirks and she smiles back. “Very kind,” she says, before breaking into a coughing fit.

Morgana catches her shoulders. “You should lie down. Could I come in? Make you some tea?” She maneuvers inside the door without waiting for an answer and helps Gwen back to her sofa, which has a crumpled blanket and pillow stacked upon it.

Gwen doesn’t object as Morgana patters around her kitchen, looking for teacups and matches. The glimpses Morgana gets of her face as she compulsively looks back through the doorway show Gwen to be mostly bemused. It takes two tries to light the pilot light.

Once the water’s on to boil, Morgana wanders back and perches on a little chair next to Gwen’s sofa. She opens her mouth to remark on the weather, but Gwen beats her to it.

“I need to tell you something.” Her face is in a concerned, bad-news shape that Morgana finds heart-stoppingly familiar. “Your family…the three of you can be quite…forward when you want to be friends with someone. Your brother, for instance—”

“Oh, I’m sorry about the fight last week. The man was just being rude. Arthur had to defend your honor.”

Gwen raises her eyebrows. “My honor.” She shakes her head and burrows a little more into her blanket. “That’s what I mean. That sort of thing…I realize it’s well-meant, but it doesn’t make things easier for me.”

A knot of worry forms in Morgana’s stomach. “What do you mean?”

“People are talking, now.” She sighs. “And it isn’t just idle gossip. A woman in the street the other day called me—”

Morgana waits, but Gwen doesn’t continue, only unfolds and refolds her neckerchief. “Called you what?”

Gwen shoots her a hard look. “Is your brother courting me?”

Uh. “…would you like that?”

Gwen looks her over carefully before answering. “I might. I would prefer that he didn’t do it in public. It’s been difficult at the pub, between Mrs. Murdy’s protective side and the other patrons’ comments.”

“I see.” It occurs to Morgana that the unfamiliar anxiety worming in her gut is _shame_. Morgana doesn’t like it.

“Would you convey to him—to him and your cousin—that I appreciate their friendship and Mr. Smith’s attentions, but that I would rather we were more discreet?”

“I will.” Morgana swallows. “I…I apologize, on all of our behalf.”

Gwen tilts her head, her mouth compressing, and for an instant, it’s like Gwen knows her, recognizes her.

“Gwen?” she whispers.

“Hmm.”

“Do you…”

The teapot whistles.

When Morgana comes back with the tea, Gwen looks just as she did before: tired, sick. The moment is gone. 

“So,” Gwen says and coughs into a handkerchief. “What do you think of Mr. Smith’s new cooking hobby?”

“Did he tell you about that?”

“I saw him in the street the other day. He gave me a loaf of bread he’d made.”

Morgana swallows her emotions and makes a disturbed face. “You didn’t eat it, did you?”

“I tried.” Gwen grins conspiratorially. “It was like chewing tree bark.”

*

Morgana climbs the stairs that night feeling restless, nearly vibrating. Her heels she kicks off on the landing, and her dress she lets drop in the doorway of Merlin and Arthur’s room. They keep separate beds, still, because they’re not quite ready for all the things they remember doing with each other. The fear of God is hard to shake, after all.

Tonight, Arthur’s still downstairs, reading, but Merlin’s already in bed, if awake. He looks up at her warily when she comes to stand next to his bed in just her slip and brassiere.

“May I join you?”

Merlin scrutinizes her face for a moment, and must be able to see something of her nerves. “Yeah,” he says and lifts the covers. Morgana crawls underneath them, right up against Merlin’s side, because it’s a single bed and impossible not to. They take a moment to settle, adjusting the pillow so they can share it. 

It’s momentous, to be sharing a bed with him. Sometimes Morgana wakes up from a dream and hates Merlin with every ounce of her being. Or she turns around in the kitchen and Merlin is standing there, yellow-eyed, and the dishes are trembling in the cupboards. On days like that, she’ll get dressed and get on a train, go to London for a few days, or long enough to let the memories subside. She’ll come home with bags of things they’ll have to take back, and Arthur will look at them with his disappointed face, and Merlin will make jokes until the tension breaks. They’re getting better at it, though. It’s been almost two months since the last time.

They’ve only had one or two lives when they’ve been better than civil to each other. Morgana badly wants this to be one of those lives, and it makes her feel greedy.

She turns her face on the pillow towards him, and then, when he doesn’t say anything, lets the rest of her body follow, canting her pelvis against his hip. “We could…if you want to.” 

His breath smells like toothpaste when he sighs. “I—. I dunno.”

“I remembered a sex spell the other day,” she says, wheedling. “Might be fun.”

He huffs a laugh, and Morgana tilts her chin until their lips are touching. The touch lingers, expands, and slides until it’s turned into a proper kiss. Morgana sucks at him eagerly, but Merlin takes control of it, makes it measured and leisurely, and Morgana knows they won’t be doing anything else tonight. She’s still grateful for the kiss, though, and she smiles against his lips to let him know.

It’s been a long time, in more than one way. The last time she can remember doing this was 75 years ago, and Gwen’s hair was silvery grey and tickled Morgana’s cheeks.

Morgana’s kissing turns into quiet crying, but she keeps Merlin from moving away from her with a hand to his nape.

“I miss her so much,” Morgana whispers into his mouth.

“Me too.”

She presses a kiss against his bottom lip to steady herself. “It might not happen. Ever. And I know it should feel like enough, just being her friend, but…”

“It’s not enough,” he says with an answering kiss. His tongue darts in and deepens it, wonderfully, and Morgana wonders if Merlin’s changed his mind about the sex when he stops and looks over his shoulder.

Arthur stands in the shadows of the doorway, hesitant-looking. “I don’t want to interrupt. Are you…?”

“No,” Merlin says immediately. Morgana can’t find even find it in her to be annoyed, because it’s Arthur. “Come here.” And Merlin lifts up the bed clothes in invitation, just as he’d done for her.

Arthur cough-laughs and shifts his feet. “Um. I don’t know if I’m quite…that is…”

Morgana speaks up. “For the amount of sodomy you’ve committed with this man, you’re awfully shy.”

Merlin bursts into nervous laughter, but Arthur covers up his own with a blustery, “Not in this life.” But the tension is broken after that.

“Push the beds together,” Morgana says. “We won’t do anything naughty.”

It’s better, when they’re all settled together. Morgana hadn’t noticed the strain in Merlin’s body until it melts, all at once, the moment Arthur lies down beside him. She drifts easily after that, and is nearly asleep when Arthur whispers, “Will one of you do the thing?”

Merlin’s nose touches her cheek on the pillow. “You start,” he murmurs.

So Morgana buries her face in Merlin’s shoulder and reaches for the earth, for the sky, for Albion and its assurance that they are who they are and they’re meant to be together. When the trickle of magic breaks open like a dam, she knows that Merlin is helping her channel it, and when Arthur sighs deep and full, she knows it’s running out their skin and into him.

*

Gwen does become their friend, in a sense. After the bout of flu, Morgana continues to visit her with books and flowers and Arthur’s attempts at cooking. Gwen accepts it all with impressive equanimity, and even responds well to references to historical events. Gwen’s a history buff, it turns out. She’s got several histories on her bookshelf, and she and Morgana have long conversations about the French Revolution and the Norman Invasion.

Gwen goes out with Arthur. They have a picnic on the edge of the woods, and the sandwiches Arthur makes for the event—Morgana checks them beforehand—are even edible. 

Morgana, naturally, spends the whole time they’re out being ragingly jealous and pretending to read a book. Merlin must pick up on her bad mood, because he places cup after cup of tea next to her elbow at her writing desk.

It’s becoming difficult to be calm about this whole business. They haven't not really talked yet about what will happen when and if Gwen gets her memory back. Will they all be…together? Will Arthur and Gwen get married, and Merlin and Morgana live with them? It’s not so strange that either Gwen or Arthur would want to be monogamous, but they haven’t talked about it, and it’s starting to chafe at Morgana that she doesn’t know what will happen. Arthur and Merlin still aren’t fucking, and that is especially worrying.

All Morgana wants is one happy ending, god damn it all, is that too much to ask?

A fourth unsolicited cup of tea appears and Morgan snaps, “I don’t want anymore!” She looks up at Merlin's tense face and realizes he’s as on edge as she is. After a moment of staring at each other, Merlin snatches a book at random from her shelves and sits cross-legged on the floor to read it.

An hour later, they both start when the front door slams. They hurry side-by-side down the stairs, and Arthur meets them halfway, face split open in a grin.

“She kissed me. Lord, it was—” but then he’s clapping Merlin’s face between his palms and kissing him, apparently unable to contain his excitement. Merlin’s so surprised that Morgana feels a little electric shock go out the air.

Their love-making that night is loud, loud enough that Morgana might have actually had trouble sleeping through it, if it weren't so reassuring. She sleeps like a baby.

*

“What do you think?” Merlin asks, as they lay out the blessing circle. They haven’t any mugwart, but Morgana postulates that black tea will do just as well. Merlin shakes a bag of it over their little circle.

“I think it will work.” Morgana bends to nudge a stone into a better arrangement. “I tried using the same tea in the cleaning elixir we brewed last week, and it made no difference.”

“I meant about tonight. Arthur’s special food.”

“Oh, that.”

Tonight, Arthur claims, is the night. In the past few weeks, they’ve eaten roasted vegetables and stuffed cabbage and chicken and so on, and they’ve all been burnt or raw or distinctly lacking in taste— _We didn’t have pepper or sugar then, I’m not putting them in now_ —but tonight’s menu is supposedly a triumph of ancient cookery. Gwen is coming over to watch the Queen’s coronation on the new television and have dinner afterward, and Arthur’s pinned his hopes on this night. It’s been wearing on Morgana, his continual optimism. She doesn’t want to be let down.

Morgana shakes off a sudden surge of anxiety and squares her shoulders. “I don’t know. Look, it’s nearly noon, let’s start.”

The magical blessing for Elizabeth’s queenship takes a full two hours. Merlin frowns through the whole thing, because his loyalty to Arthur is eternal, exclusive, and jealous. But Morgana loves it when women sit on Albion’s throne. It puts a victorious little thrill in her heart.

*

The smells wafting out of the kitchen when they arrive home speak to Arthur’s developing ability. Or, more likely, Gwen’s judicious assistance.

Morgana smiles a wide greeting at Gwen when she meets them in the foyer. She’s beyond beautiful, wearing an apron and flushed from cooking. It feels like homecoming to have Gwen meet them at the door, and Morgana has to hold herself back as she kisses Gwen’s cheek. Gwen looks a bit uncomfortable, as if she feels awkward welcoming two people into their own home.

“It smells amazing,” Merlin exclaims to cover up the awkward pause. He lowers her voice to a theatrical whisper. “Did you have to cook it yourself?”

Gwen tsks at him. She reaches out and gives Merlin’s sleeve a tug when he has trouble taking off his coat. “Of course not. He did it all on his own.”

“Really.”

“I sat in the corner and made suggestions.”

“Suggestions like, ‘Turn on the oven now’?”

“He’s much better than you think.” Gwen makes a _what can you do_ face and goes back to find Arthur, her skirt swinging against the door frame as she passes. A zing goes up Morgana’s spine at the rightness of it all, and she hardly even notices when Merlin puts a hand against her elbow.

“Deep breaths,” he says.

*

The coronation is fascinating, taking place on the squat television before their eyes. They’d only bought the contraption a week ago, and everything about it is still strange and a bit alarming. It’s not as clear as visions but clearer than scrying, and Morgana keeps listening for a magical hum that isn’t there.

Gwen leans into Arthur’s side partway through the coronation, and Morgana digs her fingernails into Merlin’s thigh so hard that he elbows her. But for the most part it’s nice.

At the end, when everyone else is yelling about God and Queen, Merlin rebelliously mutters, “Long live the King.”

Morgana pinches him, and Arthur pretends not to hear.

Gwen stretches her neck to look at him. “Don’t you mean Queen?”

Merlin scoffs, but Arthur makes a face at him from behind Gwen’s head.

“Er.” Merlin looks at her, and his face softens. “Yeah. Actually. Long live the Queen.”

Outwardly, Morgana makes a face at his sentimentality. Inwardly, her stomach does a stupid little flip.

Gwen laughs. “You are a strange one, Merlin.”

*

The food is surprisingly wonderful. There’s roasted chicken, which Arthur stuffed with pear and quince and then removed to make a sweet, dripping chutney that they pour in dollops over the meat. Morgana leaves off her fork, eventually, and pulls apart the chicken with her fingers, getting them sticky. There’s turnips roasted with sugar, cinnamon, and soft cheese, a salad of apples and onions, and dark, crusty bread. Morgana can hardly care whether she ate these items the first time around, not when the apples are so vinegary and perfect in her mouth, and when the turnips slip so easily into her mouth.

Gwen takes to rubbing bread into the crevices of her plate, soaking up the chutney. She tears off a bite with her teeth and sighs her appreciation with such delight that Morgana doesn’t notice at first that Merlin and Arthur stop to stare at her.

“ _Árlic_ ,” she’d said, biting down on the last consonant. _Delicious_.

They continue on eating, Merlin gripping his wine glass with unnecessary force, making the magic in the room hum so forcefully that even Arthur notices, and Morgana kicks him under the table.

Gwen even takes to twirling her fork between her fingers, the thing she always does when she’s savoring something.

“It’s amazing, Arthur.”

Arthur smiles tightly in response.

“It really is,” Merlin says.

“It brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Arthur says, and Morgana glares at him. _Don’t push her._

Gwen blinks. “I suppose.” She takes in a long, deep breath, scanning all their faces. “What sort of memories does it bring up for you?”

Oh god. This could be it. 

And then they all stare at each other, exchanging glances around the table, confused and overwhelmed, until Gwen exclaims, “Someone say something.”

“Gwen,” Arthur gets out.

Morgana holds up both hands. The hell with this, they have to be sure. “Gwen, what are you thinking of right now?”

“I’m thinking of the last time I had stuffed hen,” she says carefully. “It was a holiday, and there were candles lit, and…” She scans all their faces. “Oh my god.”

Merlin reaches out to take her hand. “It’s all right—”

“Oh my god,” Gwen says again, snatching her hand back. “All of you know.”

Morgana blinks. “What?”

“Were you trying to get _me_ to remember?”

There’s comes another round of exchanged looks, the four of them gaping at each other. Morgana has no idea what her own face is doing right now, but Gwen’s eyebrows are heading slowly down into a V.

Arthur breaks the silence, his face a desperate mix of confusion and shock. “I—what?”

Gwen lets a disbelieving noise. “Arthur, I’m the one who told you to try medieval cooking begin with.”

“No, you…did you?” 

“Morgana, I told you where the estate agent’s office was!”

Morgana squints, trying to remember that. She’d been all aflutter after seeing Gwen for the first time, she’d hardly stopped to breathe before signing the paperwork for the house.

“The three of you _stalked_ me.”

“We did no such—”

“Don’t you remember Morgana’s aneurysm in France?” Gwen stabs the air with her fork. “She died because we pushed too hard!”

Merlin holds up his hands. “Wait, you’ve known all this time, and you never said anything.”

“I WAS TRYING TO BE SUBTLE,” Gwen shouts at last, and Morgana promptly breaks into hysterical giggles, because _six months of stupidity_ , and then her giggles fall over a short little cliff and become tears, damn it all.

“Morgana.” Gwen tries to stand up out of her chair, but it’s trapped between the the wall and the table, so she climbs onto the table, puts her knee in the strawberry tart and her hand in Morgana’s hair.

“Honestly, how do the three of you survive—,” but then they’re kissing. Gwen is alive and in her arms and kissing her, and Morgana can’t do anything but cling to her like a swooning maiden in a Arthurian romance. The thought makes Morgana laugh into Gwen’s mouth, and Gwen laughs back, vibrating and warm.

“We don’t…” Arthur’s risen from his chair, looking overcome and like he’s waiting for an invitation. “We don’t survive without you.”

Gwen lifts a hand to him, and her eyes go a shiny. “Come here.” She throws a look over her shoulder at Merlin, who’s stock still in his chair, tears flowing openly down his cheeks. “And you, Mr. Long-Live-the-Queen.”

Merlin sniffles. “You’re sitting on the hen,” he points out.

“Shut up, Merlin,” Morgana says. Her hands are fisted in Gwen’s skirt. She’s not sure she can let go. “Come here.”

As the boys shuffle up onto the table, dishes shift and at least two things shatter when they hit the floor, but it’s distant, faraway. The only thing Morgana knows is that the four of them are touching, and Morgana’s magic slips smooth and easy through the table and the floor to find the ground.

It comes faster than ever, the connection to Albion, and the response back is simple, but approving. Like a stamp on some sort of official document.

They break eight more dishes, trying to kiss each other all at once.


End file.
